Great Expectations - This essay is about a boy called Pip who is from a very humble background.

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Great Expectations  

This essay is about a boy called Pip who is from a very humble background. Pip meets Miss Havisham who is a rich, but eccentric lady. This essay is also about how Dickens makes the reader feel sympathetic towards Pip.

In the extract it says that Pip was in a graveyard looking at his father’s grave, and he reads from the grave next to it ‘Also Georgina wife of the above’. This tells me that Pip is an orphan. Pip lives with his older sister and her husband. When Pip talks to Magwhich in the graveyard, Magwhich says ‘who d’ya live with supposing ‘. Pip replies ‘my sister, Sir – Mrs Joe Gargery – wife of Joe Gargery the blacksmith, Sir. From what Pip has replied we also no that Joe is a blacksmith.

When Pip is in the graveyard he meets Magwhich (who is an escaped convict). Dickens makes the reader feel sorry for Pip because Pip is scared, shivering, and crying. Dickens makes the setting sound ‘very bleak, dark’ and ugly. In the story Pip describes the graveyard as ‘Dark flat wilderness’.

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Magwhich says to Pip ‘I’ll have your heart and liver out’ if Pip doesn’t bring him food and stuff. Pip is in fear of Magwhich and is in fear of his sister because she might catch him robbing the pantry.

In chapter two Pip says that his sister had bought him up by hand. Pips sister says to Pip ‘if it wasn’t for me you’d have been in the churchyard a long time ago’. This is true because in those days (Dickens times) orphaned children had to look after themselves. Pip was lucky to have a home and someone to ...

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